Disclaimer: I own nothing, everything belongs to their rightful owners.
AN: dark&twisty
Strangers
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-I-
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She's sitting on the bathroom floor with her knees close against her chest. Her dark eyes fixed on the bottle of pills in her right hand. The bottle she stole from her mother's bedroom.
Twenty-eight little pills.
It might not be enough.
She feels tears prick at the corner of her eyes and she just wants to scream. How could she be so stupid? So damn reckless. Now there was no way out.
She pulls open the lid, tilts the bottle and watches blue pills spill into her trembling hand. She swallows one, two. Three. She stifles a sob, reminds herself to be quiet.
Four, five, six. The pills leave a horrible taste in her mouth, making her sick. But she can't stop. She can't.
Angry tears spill down her cheeks, but she takes another. And another. And-
"Emily! Emily open the door!"
She looks up startled. Someone's rattling on the doorknob.
"Emily, open the door! Emily!"
Matthew.
"Emily please!"
How did he find out? How did he even get in?
"Go away!" she screams. Her voice close to breaking. "Just leave me alone!"
"No! Open the door, Emily!"
She doesn't. Instead she shoves another pill into her mouth and another and another and another and-
the door bursts open.
For a brief moment there's an eerie silence, Matthew staring at her, his eyes wide with fear and anger, before he grabs her arm and pulls her to her feet. The remaining pills scattering over the white tiles.
"What are you doing?" he yells and Emily can see tears build in his eyes.
She doesn't have the time to answer, because he drags her over to the sink. Before she can pull herself free he has his fingers already shoved down her throat.
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"I'm scared," she whispers. Tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
"Don't worry," Matthew assures her. "It'll be all right."
Emily nods, even through she doesn't believe him.
"Hold my hand?" she asks and she sounds just as broken as she feels. And maybe she is. Maybe she is broken. Maybe she'll never be whole again.
Matthew smiles. Takes her hand into his.
"Always."
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She's dancing and floating. The music only in her head. She's singing, her voice high and clear and sweet. It feels like flying.
The fall comes unexpectedly.
Suddenly she's on the floor, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. The whole room spinning. The colors too bright, too- She can't think. Her head hurts. She's taken too much.
There's somone else on the floor, right next to her. Brown eyes, brown as her own. Lost, just like she is.
Matthew.
Someone is calling her name, loud and louder and louder. It might be John. It might be her mother. Or it might be some of the staff. Emily doesn't care. She just wants to sleep; she wants the baby crying in her head, her baby, to stop.
She's guilty, they all know. And yet they don't. They never will.
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"Johnny, what's- What's going on?" Emily asks, knows it must be serious. She hasn't seen him since she left Rome twenty-five years ago.
"It's about Matthew," John starts and Emily blinks in surprise.
"Benton?"
John looks up and the second she meets his gaze, she knows.
"He's dead, Emily."
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"What are you thinking?" Rossi asks her. His voice calm and gentle and Emily wonders how he can stand looking at her after everything she confessed.
"It's like the end of The Dead," she murmurs, looking up into the dark night sky. Snowflakes kissing her eye lashes. "When Gretta remembers the boy she loved when she was younger and she says I think he died for me."
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There's blood on her hands.
There always will be.
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-II-
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"You ever think about that? Having kids?"
Lauren raises a brow. "Be a little hard with what we do, don't you think?" She gives Ian a smile, wonders where this is going.
"Maybe you need the right man to do it with." He states, his voice firm, but his eyes filled with a warmth she hasn't seen before. "And a son who's crazy about you."
Lauren blinks. No. She turns her head, looks in the direction Declan disappeared with Louise. That can't be true.
"I thought he was your housekeeper's," she asks, her mind reeling.
"Louise raises Declan so no one can use him against me," Ian takes a step towards her. "But he's mine." He stops a few feet away from her, his blue eyes meeting hers. "And he needs a mother."
His words catch her completely off guard.
"I can't do that," a nervous laugh escapes her. "Not here."
"Then I'll get you out."
He sounds serious, dead serious and everything she thought she knew about him suddenly doesn't make sense.
"Or I could get you out," she stammers. Lauren starting to slip away. "I have resources. Contacts," she says, the words spilling from her lips. "He would be safer. And he'd have a father."
Ian laughs, but there's no humor in it. The gentleness has disappeared from his eyes.
"You know what I am, Lauren. A warrior. I lead warriors. I raise warriors. I can't just leave."
It sounds definite, cold and detached and Emily, no Lauren, knows it is. She knows what he's capable of. Knows what's lying ahead for Declan.
"You want me to raise your son so he can have your life?"
"Is it that bad a life?" Ian asks her softly and Lauren watches as Declan dashes back into the room. Giggling, his small hand reaching for hers. For a moment she's quiet, looking down at the innocent little boy. Pulling him close. When she speaks, she isn't sure if it's Lauren or Emily talking.
"There are so many things I would do to make you happy" she tells him. "But I can't do this."
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Everything goes to hell the moment she spots the black car pulling into the driveway. It's too soon. She isn't ready.
She grabs her gun from the nightstand and hurries out of the room to find Declan, but by the time she's halfway down the stairs it's already too late.
Ian is pressed against the wall, two agents pointing their guns at him. But to Emily's surprise he just smiles, looking all smug and self assured and she doesn't understand why, until a movement out of the corner of her eye, makes her turn her head. Declan.
He's standing in the doorway to the living room. A gun in his small hands, too heavy for him to hold up and yet he has it pointed at the two men in front of his father. The look in his eyes makes Emily shiver.
"Let my father go," the boy says. His voice high and clear. "Please."
The man to Ian's right lifts his head first and Emily takes an involuntarily step back when she recognizes him.
"Look what we have here," he laughs and Emily feels sick. She has to do something. She sneaks down the stairs, two steps at a time, reaches for Ian's gun carelessly left on the marble.
"A son, huh?" The agent to Ian's left chuckles. "Well I think we just found the leverage we've been looking for."
With a gun in her right and a gun in her left, Emily takes a step forward. Her eyes meet Ian's from across the room, a silent understanding passing in the blink of an eye. Her lips start to move without sound.
One. Two.
Ian ducks and Lauren starts shooting.
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"Which one is Declan's mom?"
"Chloe Donaghy. But she had nothing to do with this".
"How do you know, Ian? Did you kill her, too?" Emily gives him a smug smile and enjoys the anger flashing in his eyes.
"Because she tried to kill Declan before he was even born," he scowls. "She never wanted Declan. Why would she take him?"
Emily says nothing. Her mind fighting against the image of a fifteen year old, in a bathroom in Rome.
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"This is about you, Ian," Emily swallows. "It's called revenge. Chloe didn't just forget about what you put her through."
"She would rather have been dead than to have my baby!" Ian shoots back at her and with an angry growl bends over the table. His breath burning her cheeks. "What was I supposed to do?"
Emily closes her eyes.
"Chaining her to a bed wasn't the answer," she tells him softly.
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It takes three people to tear her away from Ian Doyle's dead body.
Her hands are stained with blood, her voice hoarse, but she keeps fighting against Aaron and Rossi and Morgan, begging them to let her go.
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She can't even say why.
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-III-
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"I could take her."
Emily has no idea where the words come from, she wants to take them back, but Aaron's already looking at her.
"Take her?"
"Carrie," Emily explains. "To D.C."
She watches a shadow cross his face.
"You mean to live with you?" He frowns. "Why would you want to do that?"
Emily gives a slight shrug. "I have room, money, and, you know, she's smart."
"Prentiss this is the job and I need to know that you can be objective."
He looks like he wants to say something else, but doesn't. Emily looks away, before she puts the folder in her hand back down at the table.
"And I need to know that I can be human," she whispers.
It's meant as an apology, but it sounds more like a plea.
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"They're good people. Carrie's family," JJ tells her later. "I think it's a good idea, though."
Emily raises a brow. "What's that?" she asks and catches Aaron's gaze from across the aisle.
"You." JJ smiles. "Kids. I can see it."
Emily says nothing, leans back on her seat instead. Her eyes still locked with Aaron's.
"Yeah," she whispers.
She doesn't tell JJ how wrong she is.
For some reason, Aaron doesn't either.
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Quietly Emily stares at the white plastic stick in her trembling hands.
No, she thinks. No.
She closes her eyes, counts to ten before she opens them again.
Nothing has changed. The blue lines keep mocking her.
No.
"Are you alright?"
Aaron stops her with his hand around her wrist when she steps out of the small bathroom of the BAU jet. The white plastic stick hidden in her jacket pocket.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"You tell me."
Emily stays quiet. She can't tell him. She has to fix this alone. He wouldn't understand.
"I'm good," she lies. "I'm fine."
He wants to say something else, but Rossi is coming towards them and Aaron draws back his hand.
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She gets an appointment a few days later, but she never shows.
She makes another one, but she doesn't take that one either.
She can't.
A voice in her head laughing at her failure.
She makes a third appointment, but when the day comes she doesn't need it anymore.
Maybe it's stress, maybe it's faith. Maybe it's what she deserves.
The blood staining her white sheets a painful reminder of the past.
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"I want to tell Jack."
Emily looks up from the table, grabs the cup in her hand just a little tighter.
"He knows I've been seeing someone," Aaron clarifies. "Why not tell him it's you. It would make things easier."
"For whom?" Emily feels angry.
"For us," Aaron frowns. "It would be easier for us."
"There is no us, Aaron. I thought we agreed on that."
"That was years ago, Emily. Things have changed."
Emily closes her eyes. She needs to go.
"Haven't they?" Aaron asks. He sounds confused. "Emily?"
"I can't do this."
"Emily," he reaches across the table for her hand and Emily gets to her feet. He looks thrown.
"It's not like I want you to-"
"Don't even say it!" She almost screams.
His eyes flicker. He doesn't understand. How could he?
"I'm sorry," she says.
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She knows it's not enough.
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-IV-
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"Why me, Emily? You could do it yourself, raise him as your own. He loves you."
Emily shakes her head, her eyes never leaving the face of the boy next to her. He's sleeping, curled up against her side. His small hand holding on to hers.
"He loves Lauren," she answers. "Not me. Not Emily. I'm no mother."
"You could be. If you wanted to."
"That's the point," Emily whispers and looks up to meet Tom's gaze for the first time that night. "I don't want to."
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She's sitting in the silence of the Interpol jet with her eyes closed and her fingers buried in the armrests of her seat. Haunted by the laughter of a child.
She wants to cry, longs for the sweet release of tears, but she hasn't cried in a lifetime. She doesn't know how.
"I'm sorry I didn't call sooner," Tom tells her eight hours later, when she finds herself next to him in front of a hospital room. There are dark circles under his eyes and she wonders when he last slept.
"I thought I could do this alone," he adds, before he looks back up and into the room with the barred windows.
Emily follows his gaze. She says nothing.
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She's in the hallway, staring out of a window and down into the dark parking lot.
"It's not your fault, Emily," Tom tries to soothe her. "You did what you thought was right. And so did I."
Did we, Emily wonders quietly.
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"Stop blaming yourself," Tom keeps telling her and Emily wishes he would just be quiet.
"I would do it again," he adds and Emily thinks back to that night she showed up on his doorstep, asking for his help.
"So would you, wouldn't you?"
Emily closes her eyes. No, she thinks, I wouldn't.
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When she sleeps, her dreams are crimson.
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-V-
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Lauren opens her eyes. "Ready or not, here I come," she laughs and pretends not to notice Declan hiding under the living room table.
"I don't see you," she whispers, slowly sneaking closer. "I don't see you." With a grin on her face she bends to her knees.
"I'm gonna get you," she laughs and reaches for the boy.
With a shriek and a giggle Declan crawls out from his hiding place. He's laughing, trying to get away, but Lauren holds him close. Her face buried in his blonde hair. His small hand in hers.
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Emily stares down at the blood staining her hands. She can't bring herself to wipe it off.
"I'll take you back to he bureau," Aaron states and opens the car door for her.
Emily lifts her head and her gaze meets Declan's. He's already sitting on the backseat, his sky-blue eyes searching hers. She never realized how much they look like Ian's until now.
"Hello, Lauren," he whispers.
And Emily knows.
He remembers her, too.
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"Declan," she starts. Her voice barely above a whisper. "It's me, it's Emily."
She reaches for his hand, but stops halfway when her eyes fall on his bandaged wrists. She closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath.
It's been years since she's last seen him, years since his father died. His hair is longer, messier and not blond anymore. It's dyed pitch black. His face pale and for an eighteen year old boy unusually flawless, like a childs.
He looks lost. And broken. She has to remind herself that he is.
His eyes flash open without warning. Sky-blue eyes meeting hers and a twisted smile tugs at the corners of his mouth when he tells her: "I wish my father killed you the moment you met."
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"Everything you said was a lie," he spits and Emily watches his eyes turn dark. Anger and frustration written all over his angelic face.
"Everything you did you did for your own selfish reasons," the boy adds with a voice that sounds so much like his father's, Emily can't shake the feeling that it's Ian talking to her from his grave.
"You never loved him," Declan whispers, his voice filled with hatred and rage. "You never loved me either."
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"I hate you!" The boy rages. "I fucking hate you!" He screams and rattles at the bed, tries to free himself from the restraints holding him down.
Emily watches from her place next to the barred window, watches as blood starts to seep through his bandages, watches as the room fills with people in white scrubs.
"They're all dead," Declan starts to sob. The tears on his cheeks glisten in the fluorescent light from above, making him look so young. So innocent.
"You took everything away from me," he mutters, his voice already getting slurred from the sedative. When he turns his eyes to look at her, they're filled with utter despair.
"You took everything I ever had," he whispers, his eyelids slowly fluttering shut.
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"Not everything was a lie," she tells him. Her hand resting on the blanket, her fingertips inches from his.
It's not enough, but it's all she can give.
"I know," Declan answers. "I know."
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In the faint light of morning, his eyes don't look like his fathers' at all.
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-VI-
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Wide eyed Emily stares at the small blister of pills.
One tiny pill, bright pink, glaring back at her. Laughing.
No. No, no, no.
"Emily?"
How is this possible? She's been careful. So damn careful.
"Darling, are you alright?"
There's a hand on her arm and she looks up startled.
"What is it?" Clyde raises a brow, eyes her carefully. Instead of an answer Emily holds up the bilster. It takes him a moment to realize what it is.
"You forgot one," he states.
"I don't-" she starts. Stops. Shakes her head. She feels stupid and tired and like fifteen all over again. This can't be happening.
"You're not," Clyde tells her and Emily looks up.
"I should have told you sooner. It just never seemed to be a good time." He looks worried, almost as if he's afraid and Emily doesn't understand because Clyde Easter isn't afraid of anything.
"As long as you're with me, there's no need for birth control pills."
Emily frowns. "You don't understand," she starts. "I don't want to-"
"You don't understand, Emily." He reaches for her hand. "I had a vasectomy."
She's never been more relieved in her entire life.
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"Why didn't you tell me?" Clyde asks. "That you shot them, That it wasn't Doyle."
Emily leans back on her seat, looks out of the window and into the clouds.
"I didn't. Lauren did."
Clyde shakes his head. "You should have told me. It changes everything."
"No," Emily says. "It doesn't. They're dead. All of them."
"The boy isn't."
Emily closes her eyes.
There are days she wishes he would let her forget.
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"Why do I keep feeling guilty for something I know was right?" Emily wonders, her eyes fixed on a dark haired woman a few tables away with a baby in her arms and a blonde toddler in a stroller next to her.
She hears the rustle of a newspaper and out of the corner of her eye she watches Clyde follow her gaze. He sighs.
"Because that's what the world wants you to."
"Why is it such a terrible thing if a woman doesn't want to become a mother?" Emily turns around to face him. "Why do I always feel the need to apologize for it?"
Clyde shrugs. "You're asking the wrong person, darling." He reaches for his coffee and Emily looks back at the woman.
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She's in the middle of a briefing when Clyde shows up out of nowhere. She stops midsentence, a file still in her hand.
He shouldn't be there. He should be on his way to Budapest.
"What happened?" she asks, her eyes meeting his from across the room.
"It's about, Declan," Clyde starts. His face calm and composed, only the sorrow in his eyes giving him away. "I'm sorry, Emily."
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He should be in London, but instead he's here. Clyde Easter standing in the pouring rain outside the wide hospital doors, cursing in his thick British accent about the bloody weather. Looking all smug and handsome, even now, when he's soaked to the bone.
"Forgot your raincoat?" Emily chuckles, despite the tears blurring her vision.
At the sound of her voice he lifts his head. His features a mask of calmness, but in his eyes, in his deep blue eyes she finds everything she's looking for.
He closes the gap between them in two strides and her eyes fall shut the moment his hand finds the small of her back. His lips are warm and soft against her forehead when he pulls her close.
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He says nothing.
But that's enough.
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Disclaimer: I own nothing, Everything belongs to their rightful owners.
AN: Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read and/or review my stories, that really means the world to me! And of course a big thank you goes to my wonderful beta reader clairebare!